The only issue in the primary — aside from picking the candidate — is whether the current level of invective will preclude the losers from wholeheartedly endorsing the winner, and whether they have so damaged themselves that Barack Obama can simply rerun their ads against the eventual nominee. History mostly (but not always) suggests that wounds heal and unity follows as a candidate finally emerges, but while these suicidal Republican attacks continue, Obama largely has gotten a pass on the recess appointments, the debt hitting $16 trillion, the Keystone pipeline, the defense cuts, and de facto promises to various groups that federal immigration law will not be enforced.

Rather than going over the details of Gingrich’s marriages or Romney’s tax returns, at some point we need to hear which candidate can articulate what exactly is wrong with Obamaism and what he would do instead — and I don’t mean serial banalities like that Obama is an Alinskyite or a European socialist or a big-government liberal. I mean something a little more concise: how in the world can the budget be balanced, much less the debt reduced; what exactly we should expect from the looming enactment of Obamacare; roughly how many barrels of energy were lost from Obama’s serial denial of federal leases; why $500 million spent on Solyndra is preferable to, say, a comparably priced new frigate; or why and how “reset” with and outreach to Iran and Syria were utter failures. Just a minute or two on issues like that, and a pass on the former Mrs. Gingriches and Bain capital.